Irish topple Bruins for first win

Notre Dame fought its way out of one of the worst slumps in school history.

Jimmy Clausen scored on a sneak and Maurice Crum returned a fumble 34 yards for another touchdown during a 50-second span of the third quarter and the Fighting Irish won for the first time this season, 20-6 over UCLA on Saturday in Pasadena, Calif.

“When you’re 0-5, everyone in the country is laughing at you,” Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis said. “The only thing you can do is do something about it on the field.”

The Irish did.

After a school-record 0-5 start, they won to avoid matching their longest losing streak. The victory was their first in eight games dating back to last season, and the only other time the Irish lost eight straight was in 1960, when they won their opener and didn’t win again until the final game of the season.

Pasadena again proved hospitable to the Irish. In Notre Dame’s only other visit, coach Knute Rockne’s “Four Horsemen” defeated coach Pop Warner’s Stanford team 27-10 in the 1925 Rose Bowl to give the Irish their first undisputed national championship.

This time, Notre Dame (1-5) knocked UCLA quarterback Ben Olson out with a knee injury late in the first quarter, then pressured freshman redshirt McLeod Bethel-Thompson into mistakes the rest of the game.

A walk-on pressed into the backup role for UCLA (4-2) because of an injury to Patrick Cowan, Bethel-Thompson had not thrown a pass in a college game.

The Irish picked off four of his throws, with Crum getting two interceptions to go along with his recovery of Bethel-Thompson’s fumble that he ran in for a touchdown.

Oregon State 31, Arizona 16: At Corvallis, Ore., Yvenson Bernard ran for 140 yards and a pair of touchdowns then caught another score, and the Beavers (3-3, 1-2) defeated the Wildcats (2-4, 1-2).

Sean Canfield completed 17 of 30 passes for 139 yards for OSU, which built a big early lead, but did not surrender it like they had in their previous two games.

Willie Tuitama passed for 222 yards for Arizona.